


Primeval 100 Drabbles: 151 - 200

by Annariel



Series: Primeval 100 Drabbles [4]
Category: Primeval
Genre: Community: primeval100, Drabble Collection, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-08-23
Updated: 2011-08-23
Packaged: 2017-10-23 00:10:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 47
Words: 5,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/244106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annariel/pseuds/Annariel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mixture of drabbles for prompts drawing from all of the Primeval series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Trapped

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to collect together the first drabbles for the third 50 Primeval 100 prompts as I write them. Therefore it is a work in progress since these only get tackled with p100 does a "past challenges" week. One of the reasons I've put "Choose not to Warn" and not listed characters and pairings is that this may well vary as more get added and the characters and pairings would probably quickly tend towards "all". Since I can add specific warning as well as "Choose not to Warn" I will add specific warnings as they crop up.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 151

I was going to change the world...

...but not until after university, not until I'd saved a bit...

Then...

Mortgage, boyfriend, people waiting for the engagement to be announced; lots of people who would be hurt and let down.

Then...

I was surrounded by people who were difficult. God! were they difficult. People who constantly hurt each other and let each other down, but they were brave and shining and determined.

I don't want to let them down. But they've shown me I have to sieze my own dream, find my own way to change the world and fly free.


	2. Thunder and Lightening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 152

The wild storm was raging but Mother Cutter did not care. She had the knife. She had the skull. She climbed to the top of Silbury Hill, and hadn't it taken some effort to get that built, fit for purpose, four thousand years earlier.

She knelt atop the hill and plunged the knife into the skull. Lightening struck.

Bolts of paradox curled around her, racing down the hill and out onto the plain. Anomalies danced in the thunder, powering the network, connecting to the labyrinth.

Mother Cutter stood at the heart of the storm and saw that it was good.


	3. Short, Sharp, Click

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 153 (Gen)

Jennifer Lewis walks away. Her heels click, click, click on the floor. They sound irritated.

The team are intimidated by the stark suit and the red lips. Even James Lester, accustomed to forceful personalities, is uncertain. How do you tell someone so sharp and brittle about the dinosaurs? He fears the hard exterior will break into a bitter laugh and she'll resign. Cutter's already convinced her, in less than a sentence, that he's either a lunatic or making fun of her.

Lester leaves her to work it out and never apologises that in doing so he nearly got her killed.


	4. Dinosaurs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 154

Connor was counting his blessings because everything ached, the router was bust and Abby was watching keep fit.

Steady job. Out of deference to his grandpa who thought it important. Grandpa was also awesome with lego and didn't mind buying TV tie-in novelisations as presents.

Co-workers. Abby was the best person to work with ever. And when you also worked with Cutter that was saying something. Abby was probably a blessing in her own right, number three.

Best thing about the job was the great people, especially Abby.

That and the dinosaurs, but he was saving them for blessing ten...


	5. Claudia Brown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 156

Late one night, long after the children had flown the nest. Jenny woke up alone and thirsty.

She was unsurprised to see that the light was on in Nick's study as she padded downstairs. He was inside, pouring over diagrams and equations, endlessly working because he couldn't sleep.

"Still trying to find a pattern in the anomalies?" she asked.

"Aye! I thought I had an idea about the time-line changes but it doesn't work."

"If you did figure it out, would you bring back Claudia?"

She saw him hesitate before he said "no", and in that instant her heart broke.


	6. Cake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 157

Every morning Claudia ate breakfast at Henry's. She had coffee and a croissant and she looked at the cake; a moist and rich chocolate cake, encased in thick icing.

A slice only cost 50p. Resisting temptation was a part of Claudia's morning routine. Maybe, some day, she'd succumb; on her fortieth birthday, perhaps, or when she finally got Cutter out of her hair - some event worthy of the capitulation.

One morning, as she ate her croissant and sipped her coffee, a voice said, "May I sit here?"

She looked up to see Helen, a slice of cake in each hand.


	7. Surrender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 158

"Retreating from the field of battle? Not like you," said Lyle.

Maybe not, but Ryan felt like an old soldier in this war. He'd fought his last campaign when Jeff walked out. He was done with relationships.

"What's that about a battle?" With impeccable timing, Hart appeared in the doorway.

"Ryan's hiding behind his defences. I recommend a full frontal assault." Lyle grinned, slapped Hart's chest and then wandered off.

Hart raised his eyebrows. "Fancy a pint?"

As an opening salvo it was simple, but effective. Ryan sighed inwardly, picked up his jacket and braced himself for one last campaign.


	8. Food, Glorious Food

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 159

All was dry and arid, parched and lifeless. The children mewled with hunger. The mother could provide little. They were running out of time.

They watched the elusive shadow watching them. It smelled strange and exotic, but mostly it smelled of meat. It wasn't of this place any more than they were. They controlled their hunger, and watched until it vanished, suddenly, through the same bright light that had first led them to this land.

They broke through, into cool sunlight, light rain and a cornucopia of beasts. The family was saved. Food, glorious food, surrounded them in great abundance.


	9. Girl on Beach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 160 (Picture Prompt)

Connor surveyed the deserted beach, harpoon gun over one shoulder.

"Tranqs, backed up by M4s would be easier," said Abby cautiously.

"You heard the eye-witness; one minute the girl was standing on the beach, then she was gone, nothing but a camera left. We know what's there."

"I don't want to have to rescue you, again."

Connor flashed her a devil-may-care smile. "We know this way works. It'll be fine."

He vaulted over the railings at the edge of the promenade.

Abby winced at the yelp of pain. Twenty years dead, and Connor was still trying to emulate Stephen Hart.


	10. The Permian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 161

This was where it had started and this was where it would end. Timeline after timeline would fold back on itself. Claudia wondered where that would leave her. Was she real or only a ghost?

Dry earth blew around her feet. Ferns grew among the rocks and tall pines waved in the distance. Nothing was artificial save for an abandoned camera, next to dusty bones.

Her cheeks were wet with tears.

The body and camera were not the only things out of time. Mishapen, domed, sightless heads stared at her. Claudia stared back.

She turned and ran for the anomaly.


	11. Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 162

"You cast a long shadow, you know," Jenny remarked.

Claudia laughed gently. "Oh come now, Jennifer Lewis. You're not going to let yourself be scared of shadows are you?"

Jenny laughed too. "Not scared exactly, a little intimidated, perhaps."

"You say that only Helen is left who remembers me. What do you even care what she thinks?"

Jenny shook her head. "You're right. I don't."

"So go, with my blessing." Claudia kissed Jenny and then gave her a little shove, sending her stumbling towards the anomaly.

Jenny looked back once and then stepped through, to emerge blinking into the light.


	12. Lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 163

Captain Ryan gave his life in Afghanistan, serving his country, fighting to protect the way of life and ideals that we all hold dear.

Mercifully, his death was swift and painless. He was protecting a civilian group, attacked in a roadside ambush. Captain Ryan received a bullet through the head. It is doubtful he even realised what was happening.

A full investigation has been conducted into the circumstances. It is the army's belief that all those involved, both military and civilian, acted with the utmost professionalism and integrity. No blame can be assigned.

_Dulce et decorum est pro Patria mori._


	13. Bones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 164

## Bones

The bones stuck out of the dry sand, long picked clean by wind and predators. They formed a ridge on top of the dune; an arched colonade which a traveller walked through, giant ribs curving over their heads and pointing up towards the sky. The skull lay some way distant, tumbled down the sandy slope to lie, facing backwards looking at the great architectural remains of its once vast body. The hollow eyes gazed back, blank and empty, while the sands of time blew and drifted, and ground the vast edifice into tiny grains which were dispersed on the wind.

* * *

 

## Bones (Helen)

 

Helen found it first and paused to marvel at a sight never seen by human eyes. The first time she passed she gazed upon it with a paleontologist's eye. She measured and theorized and ran her hands over the smooth bone. She sighed when she turned her back and moved on her way.

The next time her eyes and thoughts were elsewhere. Living animals were her concern. Survival was her priority. Ambition and desire for intangibles such as freedom and recognition drove her. These were just bones in the sand and had nothing to offer. She did not look back.

* * *

## Bones (Nick)

 

Wandering through time, Nick stumbled upon them. He had a goal and had no time but his eyes darted from side to side as he walked between the ribs.

He returned. Sometimes he brought others. Then the measuring was done, and the skull once more laid bare. Curiosity was in Nick's blood and the skeleton told him all it could. Once done, he moved on to new challenges and asked new questions.

Yet, paleontology was in Nick's bones. Time and again he walked this way and in each passage he looked upon the dead with the eyes of a child.


	14. Airborne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 166

Telperion Ryan flew over the great plain rejoicing in the feel of the wind. Below him a large herd of Arcosaurs ambled along. He dived down, swooping between their necks and then darting in among the vast plodding legs, enjoying the skill of navigating among the obstacles as the wind urged him on. Then he climbed once more up into the clouds.

"One of these days a predator will stampede them and then you'll only be so much pillow stuffing," remarked Miranda disapprovingly.

Ryan laughed. "I'm better than that!" and even if he wasn't, some things were worth the risk.


	15. Disappointment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 167

The flat was strangely impersonal. In one cupboard there was a tangle of rock-climbing gear. A bookshelf groaned under the weight of textbooks and a handful of dog-eared thrillers.

The Spice Girls mug was an oddity, but the kitchen cupboards mostly contained IKEA starter kit.

There was nothing in the flat to tell her anything about Stephen that she couldn't read on his one-page CV.

Jenny, boxing up everything for Oxfam, save for the textbooks which she'd send to the university, felt oddly disappointed. She had wanted the flat to reveal the man she had never really known in life.


	16. Head over Heels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 168

Dara meant compassion and wisdom. The name was bestowed upon her both to reflect who she was and prescribe who she should be. Claudia worked to remain compassionate, kind, wise and insightful. That meant she worked to remain dignified and aloof. She watched Stephen and Ryan dash off to fight dragons or hippogriffs or whatever came through the anomalies and she smiled upon them when they returned.

But when Cutter dragged himself through the mists that separated the worlds, half-eaten apple in hand, she felt like a teenager. She laughed and she smiled and she danced and it was good.


	17. Fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 169

Ryan was mildly surprised when Professor Nicholas Cutter suddenly roughened up and took a swing at him. It had been a long day and too much had happened. Ryan needed a beer and some time to think, not a round of fisticuffs and some kind of leadership battle with a civilian. Ryan hoped the blow he landed in return would decisively put an end to matters.

To be honest, Ryan had rather hoped pistol whipping the man would firmly put an end to anything.

It was just his bad luck that it turned out to be the start of something.


	18. Flowers in the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 170 (Picture Prompt)

Oba and Zarina climbed onto the rooftop to watch the show. They owned a tiny cube on top of a Nairobi high-rise. Oba filled the roof with potted plants. The night scents of jasmine and bougainvillea floated in the air.

"They say there will be another water cut soon," said Zarina sadly. Too much of their ration went on the flowers.

"It will all change tonight," whispered Oba. "The project will solve all the shortages."

They lay side by side on the roof top and above them, one after another, the great lights opened in the sky like golden flowers.


	19. The Road to Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 181

Helen's last memory was of a raptor coming out of nowhere. Stupid way to die.

She stood on a narrow road that stretched out in two directions. One way spiralled up a vast mountain. Even from this distance she could hear obsequious groans and the chant of smug and pious prayers.

In the other direction the road was covered in sharp rocks. It plunged down into a dark fissure in the ground, ash blew towards her on the wind.

Helen turned her back on the mountain. She had a feeling she would accomplish more if she headed into the pit.


	20. Revolution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 172

## Spring

Connor brought home half a dozen daffodils `for the flat'. Rex ate them. Connor didn't ask for anything she wasn't prepared to give. This was good.

## Summer

It had been blisteringly hot; dust in her hair and sand in her mouth. Caroline provided a welcome breathing space to get her thoughts in order.

## Autumn

Connor didn't follow up on the kiss. He didn't call. Why had she done it? Mates to lovers never worked.

## Winter

They sheltered in a cave. Connor put his arm round her. Should she push for more?

## Spring

"It's about time I told you something?"


	21. Obsession and Thinking in Four Dimensions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 173 and a follow up drabble

Nick had become fascinated by the patterns. If he stared at the model long enough and in the right way, links and connections would form like a stream of light crossing the space. Thinking in four dimensions, seeing the way things linked together, was the most incredible experience.

"You can't hide in your work for ever, you know." Lester said kindly one evening.

"What do you mean?" Nick shot back agressively.

"You are going to have to face Stephen's death sooner or later."

Nick ignored him until he went away. Lester was wrong. He wasn't in denial. He was obsessed.

## Thinking in Four Dimensions

Thinking in four dimensions; you started seeing every event as the moments and choices that led up to it. You build models of causality, like the letters of an alphabet. The words of this new language stretched into the future. Nick ceased to be surprised by events. He had the opportunity to weigh the outcomes of every choice. It wasn't that he wanted to die, but he rejected each route that avoided death: Connor dead, body broken; Helen triumphant; Jenny's face burned, her mind gone.

The greatest gift, the language of time, hidden in the artifact, he gave to Connor.


	22. You want me to put what, where?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 174 (You want me to put that where)

The Uintatherium was large and, while not obviously vicious, had the look of a creature who would not worry about who was in her way or under her feet. Connor reminded himself she was a herbivore. Then again that just meant a lack of really sharp teeth but gave no guarantee of a friendly demeanour.

Connor eyed her very warily. "I'm not sure about this."

Abby stood next to the beast with her hands on her hips and smirked.

"Well Connor, you did say `Are you sure she's pregnant' and I can only think of one way to check for certain."


	23. Death by Chocolate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 175

Jenny sank into her bath as she enjoyed the feuilltine's contrast of praline and crispy flakes. Her aching muscles relaxed under the combined assault of warm water and the choclatier's skill.

"I take it I'm surplus to requirements," said a slightly woebegone voice.

Becker stood in the doorway, stark naked. Everything was standing to attention.

Jenny picked up another chocolate and bit into it slowly. The hazelnut gianduja centre melted together with the sharp and bitter dark chocolate that enrobed it. A small mewling sound escaped her throat and she closed her eyes.

Dejected and defeated, Becker left the room.


	24. Bad Romance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 176

"Miss Maitland, I'd like to see you in my office."

The first time there was confusion and then disbelieving horror, as he locked the door. Moments later she was pressed to the desk, one hand clamped over her mouth and her knickers tangled around her ankles.

She knew what she could and should do. She'd taken the self-defence classes. But every time he spread her legs and took his pleasure, he dismissed her with the same simple threat. "Mention this and you are off the team."

She blamed Stephen and then Connor. If it weren't for them she could leave.


	25. Hospital

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 177

"Thanks for picking me up." Stephen sounded morose.

"It was worth it for the gossip in reception. I gather Allison made quite an exit."

Stephen grimaced at Nick. "Go on, say I told you so."

"I don't recall offering any specific advice on appropriate sexual behaviour while hospitalised."

"I didn't know Allison would be coming back so soon... or that the nurse would mention it."

"Aye well, at least it wasn't Abigail Maitland. I was a little worried."

Stephen found something to stare at outside the car. He made a mental note not to mix women and hospitalisation in future.


	26. Happily Ever After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 178

Ryan sat on the branch of the great tree and Claudia snuggled up next to him. They looked down on Connor and Abby seated, together, below them.

"At least we're still alive and we have each other," said Connor, shivvering in the cold. "Not like..."

"I know. Stephen, Ryan, Nick, so many losses, even that Claudia. None of them will ever get to be happy now."

Claudia giggled, free and girlish and Ryan laughed with her, pulling her close and rubbing his face in her hair.

Guardian spirits, in the dark nights of the Cretaceous, they watched over their charges.


	27. The Road not Taken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 179

They called it the Language of Time. Connor's writing spiralled out, tracing paths he might take through the future.

Sarah's hand squeezed his shoulder. "Bad luck," she whispered.

There were lots of paths. Some led to peace and quiet, waking up each morning with the same head resting in his arms, even if the world outside went to pot.

But Sarah knew the road he would take. The hurried kiss and the promise to return. Beyond that he couldn't see. He wasn't fluent enough in the language. He just hoped that road would eventually wind its way back to Lester.


	28. Persistence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 180

I weave and a grand design emerges. People meet and part, threads intertwining. People die, their motif abandoned, half complete. Sometimes they change beyond recognition, like birds turning into fish in a tesselated print.

Through the whole tapestry shoots a bright silver thread. It is confident, self-assured, and single-minded in its vision and purpose. It is the thread from which the whole work started and it is the thread with which it will end.

I watch it bring other patterns into the mix, abandoning them when it chooses.

I am Fate, but my weaving dances to the tune Helen plays.


	29. Goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 181

She _had_ been right. Her deductions might have been off. But her deductions _had_ been correct insofar as they were the best interpretation of the facts available and those facts had _demanded_ action.

So, she had been right. If she told herself that then she could carry on.

The grave was simple and plain. Tasteful. She detected the hand of James Lester.

She was damned if she was going to cry. She was damned if she was going to say sorry.

"Goodbye Nick," she said firmly. Then she walked away because it was the only worthwhile thing she could do.


	30. Haunted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 182

Ghosts thronged the ARC tonight. Winter's icy grip had yet to freeze imagination into stillness. When James Lester looked out of his high window and watched the lights below, he could feel spirits at his back. The soldiers were a comfort and a protection. They continued to do their duty. Nick and Stephen urged him on, persistent, bickering and restless. Their deaths were testament to mistakes; their ghosts driven by sharp thoughts and abstract ideals. Claudia's presence was faint. She was a whisper in the depths of the night. A warning that the stakes were higher than he could understand.


	31. Reservations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 183

James Lester had a reserved parking space. When he went out, Lorraine managed the reservations for him. In meetings his seat was always reserved. He had a reserved manner. He surrounded himself with little boxes designed to keep people away and marked with the letters `reserved'. He told himself he liked it that way. Things might not be simple but at least they were neat, orderly and well contained.

It surprised him therefore how much happier he was, once one Connor Temple had trailed chaos through his neat, orderly, well contained little flat and his neat, orderly, well contained life.


	32. Special Forces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 184

Lyle was the free spirit who never quite grew-up; always ready with a laugh and joke.

Finn was a good lad; though not the brightest card in the pack.

Kermit was the family man. His life revolved around Kara and the baby.

Ditzy was driven and competent, doing his sensible best for his friends.

Blade was the loner, a bit psychotic maybe, but he was a mate, so what could you do?

An ordinary bunch of blokes out for a night on the town. Ryan looked around his men as they laughed and joked and knew each one was special.


	33. For the Children

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 185

One morning, Abigail Maitland walked into Lester's office and resigned.

That evening Connor moped and argued around her flat.

"I found something better," she said.

Six months later he managed to catch up with her in the fens. She was knee-deep in mud and seemed to be surrounded by a horde of placard waving swamp people.

"Lunch?" he suggested hopefully.

He took Dame Abigail Maitland to Claridges for her fiftieth birthday.

Halfway through the stuffed mushrooms, a little girl asked for an autograph for `saving all those birds.'

"Why did you leave?" pressed Connor. "Why did you turn to campagining?"


	34. Someone to Lean On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 186

Lester told himself, went he sent them away to hide, that he was simply protecting an investment. When Becker turned on Christine, Lester told himself it was simply a shrewd maneuver.

Lester watched the team. He saw Connor shoe Sarah away and send her home the day her grandmother died. He saw Danny help a laughing but limping Abby up the steps after a dangerous call. He noticed the way Sarah gave Danny a little thumbs up before he saw Lester to report.

It didn't really matter what Lester told himself, he knew why the team worked together so well.


	35. Anniversary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 187

On the first anniversary of Helen's disappearance Nick went into work as usual, ignoring the surprised glance and tentative question of his inherited PhD student.

On the fifth anniversary, Stephen turned up on his doorstop with a bottle of Caol Isla and a determined look on his face. "Nicholas Cutter, you are going to damn well mourn, even if I have to let you drink me under the table to do it."

Nick didn't even realise the eighth anniversary had passed until Connor Temple thrust a newspaper headline under his nose and the walls came crashing down around him.


	36. Frozen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 188

Steel looked dispassionately at the time break. Contained now, frozen into the stillness that only absolute zero could bring.

"Pity," said Lead, his deep voice booming. "She's a pretty little thing."

Steel hadn't thought of the break as a she and didn't propose starting now. It had one arm upraised, its mouth open, a look of surprise and indignation on its face.

"I never had much patience with humans," Steel said.

He threw one, single, hard punch and watched the frozen figure shatter into pieces. The break was destroyed. His job done.

"So much for Claudia Brown." Sapphire sounded mournful.


	37. I thought you were Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 189

It all started, Helen now knew, at an MoD research facility run by a mysterious Miss Smith. With the technology at her disposal, it was trivial to break in. She moved swiftly and silently, until she stood in Miss Smith's darkened office.

She placed a compact pistol at the back of the woman's head but paused, recognising the face that looked back at her from a mirror hung on the opposite wall.

"Christine Johnson! I thought you were dead!" she couldn't help saying.

"Oh please Helen, such a cliche! Besides I could say the same of you, twice in fact."


	38. Time Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 190 (Picture Prompt)

Frozen.

She is an errant cul-de-sac in time. Those that would keep the highways clear froze her and shattered her and, as far as they were concerned, that was the end of the matter.

But there is more to Claudia Brown than a footnote among the might-have-beens of history.

Each fragment of herself becomes a gateway. As she falls, she twists through the curves of time and arrives. Arrives at last and gives her blessing.

"Go with joy."

Silently she falls as white flakes around Nicholas Cutter and Jennifer Lewis who hold hands and gaze, laughing, into the night sky.


	39. Honey, I'm Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 191

"Honey, I'm home!"

Three simple words spoken in a tone of sarcasm intended more to annoy than to please. After six months of silence and uncertainty, they lifted Lester's heart.

A bag dropped, thumping heavily against a wall. Boots stamped and then clattered as their owner tossed them onto the laminated flooring.

Lester was in the hallway immediately.

"Eager!" grinned Lyle. He looked tired.

"Just protecting the paintwork." Lester pulled him close.

"Bloody paintwork," muttered Lyle, his head dropping to Lester's shoulder. "I don't know why I put up with you."

"The feeling's mutual." Lester smiled and held Lyle tight.


	40. Flesh and Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 192

The CMU archeology department had boasted an expert on facial reconstruction. Nick had written the discipline off as showmanship with a touch of the charlatan about it. Even so he had, once or twice, watched in fascination as the man layered clay muscle and skin on top of a skull until a dead face emerged to stare sorrowfully into his eyes.

It was with similar fascination, laced with horror, that he watched the process in reverse, as the future predators peeled away Stephen's skin, and then muscles, layer by layer until the floor was strewn with flesh, blood and bone.


	41. Stargazing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 193

"Can we find Orion?"

"Wha?"

"It's a constellation. It was in my magazine."

"Oh Aye! Weel! Did the fancy magazine say how to find yon?"

"No, but you can find it Dad!"

"I find your faith in ma abilities touching. I ken that there's the North star."

"I'm going to be an astronomer when I grow up. The magazine says how to do it."

"I thought you were going to be a dinosaur hunter."

"That was _ages_ ago. I was little and didn't know dinosaurs are extinct."

"Ach well, Nicholas. I dinna doubt you'll be whatever you want to be."


	42. Naked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 194

The fingers that drifted across the skin on his chest were worn. Toughened from clinging to rock, scrapping, and holding guns in harsh sun and blowing sand. Lester could feel each touch, followed by soft lips and the ghosting of breath.

Jon looked up. A lop-sided grin betrayed an imminent sarcastic remark.

Lester was amazed. The afternoon sun fell across Jon's features. Gold flamed in his brown hair. Contrasts of light and shadow revealed the muscles that held him poised above Lester.

"I love you," Lester whispered and Jon's quip died unuttered.

James Lester lay revealed; naked body and soul.


	43. James Lester

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 195

He had been here too long. He was letting the facade slip. That frightened him. The subtle, beguiling, intoxicating sense that maybe people liked him, that maybe, just maybe, people appreciated him for what he had done was terribly, terribly dangerous.

If upfront, straightforward, people like Abby could tell he cared just a little then the dangerous sharks could tell that he cared a great deal. He had traded gentle glances and kind words for the security of good, hard-working people.

He must leave, but not yet. A crisis loomed. He told himself, again and again, he would leave afterwards.


	44. Phobia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 196

"Hurrah! You show the Hoi Polloi!" Roger brayed with laughter.

Jenny felt humiliated, stricken and trembling.

"Are you OK?" The man she had decked was from the band. "He said just to tap you on the shoulder."

Jenny stammered and apologised and explained. Michael, he was called Michael, found her somewhere to sit where nothing could creep up on her. When she decided she had to leave. He asked no questions, but found a taxi.

Jenny took one of the band's flyers with her. She had a suspicion, even in her confused state, that she might have found a keeper.


	45. Anthem for Denial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 197 (These are a few of my favourite things)

Cable-ties, critters and sarcastic Lester,  
Becker and Matt when they're all Matt and Becker,  
Pretty much anyone with added wings,  
These are a few of our favourite things.

Competent soldiers, with guns that go boom,  
Nick's suprised hair and the cleavage of doom,  
Dave's knitted socks and the way that he springs

Thigh-straps on Ryan and nipples on Stephen,  
Becker when angsty, his hair crisp and even,  
Connor all battered and tied up with string

When the plot's daft,  
When our boys die,  
When the set-up's mad  
We simply remember our favourite things  
and then we don't feel so bad.


	46. Cakes and Ale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 198

The Inn at the World's Edge clung desperately to a sheer cliff face and the ocean pounded rocks far below. Helen wasn't sure where or when it was, but she welcomed the sight every time she tumbled out of an anomaly and found it before her.

"Who's the new boy?" she asked Gaius, the barman.

"Name of Patrick Quinn. You interested?"

Helen liked what she saw. There was potential there. Then he looked up at her with a predator's gaze.

She shivvered and turned back to Gaius. "No, he'll be dead weight."

He shrugged. "Just cake and ale tonight then?"


	47. Anomaly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 199

Such a gentle word that tripped off the tongue without harsh gutterals, or sharp consonants.

Helen rolled it around in her mouth. She'd met travellers from a dozen eras and they all used different terms: portal; gateway; faery lights; a dozen names that spoke of adventure and mystery and possibility. But Nick's chosen name was `anomaly': something out of place.

Out of place like an unwifely wife who didn't do the `plus one' thing, who didn't bother trying to entertain your friends, and who didn't put her career second. And people wondered why she'd felt like marriage was suffocating her.


End file.
